Raiders Keepers
by erlkid
Summary: Law is a tricky religion with a dead god. It's up to the Wastelanders to fill in the gaps.


Turns out it's only when you're dying you realise just how bad you've fucked things up.

My life was pretty typical stuff. Orphan from before my brain was developed enough to remember shit, picked up by slavers in the Wasteland sometime after that. Was the toy for the slaver head honcho 'til I was ten, and then he decided I was getting a little loose for his liking. He was going to kill me personally as thanks, I guess, for my years of hard work. Only he was getting old, and I was just discovering that, hey, there's no fucking height restriction on being able to blow someone's head off.

After that I hit the Wastelands an adult of ten. Killed a few more folks who thought I'd be easy pickings.

But no one signs up with a kid, so I couldn't get a gang together until I was fifteen. It's pretty funny what surviving on your own does to you. You can't quite get it straight in your head whether you're good or evil. Most of the time you don't give a shit; you're too busy trying not to get your ass blown off by super mutants. But when you finally find some time to take a nap, well. You don't fall asleep right away.

That gives you plenty of time to think.

When I was thirteen I met this Wastelander. Don't remember his name, and probably wouldn't even know him to see him again. Probably dead now anyways.

At the time he was in bad shape. His leg was busted. Said he was with a scav team from some shithole town or another. He begged me for water and something to take the pain away 'til his team found him. I had both, and gave them to him. I'd just found them after a worthless two hours, and was hoping they'd be enough to make the day profitable. Why I gave them away so easily I don't know. At any rate this guy asked me to hang around a while. Could've been planning to hand me over to the team when they came back, but shit, I stayed with him anyway. They came, he left, and I wandered off empty handed. The scav team wouldn't spare anything in thanks, though the guy begged them. I remember he looked pretty damn sorry as they hauled his ass outta there.

Let's spin forward a few years, and we get to the place where I have that gang I mentioned. We had a good thing going. Raiders, they called us. Assholes of the Wasteland, no doubt, but we were just trying to make a living. This one night we managed to knock over a caravan carrying weapons, materials, food, drink, you name it. What a goddamn haul that was. We were comfortable for weeks. With the weapons we already had and all the shit we got from them, we set up a permanent camp in Friendship Heights. Even had ourselves a couple barricades. Real heavy duty stuff, right? That night we got blitzed, had an orgy, and told ourselves life was good.

Those two different things, right there? Staying with the cripple and the victory party with the gang?

They're my two most favourite memories.

So yeah, life's good, 'til the old Lone Wanderer (bow wow!) comes striding out of the Wastes like Death forgetting where he'd tied his pale horse. Didn't look like that at the time. At the time I thought that if I had myself one of those V.A.T.S things, it would've said [EASY TARGET].

Lying here with my guts in my hands, I'm thinking jumping that asshole might not've been the best idea we've ever had.

But like I said, it's only when you're dying you realise how badly you fucked up. I'm not talking about deciding to jump GNR's wet dream. No, what I mean is that I realised something pretty goddamn important. At least I guessed at it, and hell I knew I wasn't gonna have time to test the theory, so I went with it.

But I got the feeling that maybe if I'd spent my time on days like the first memory instead of nights like the second, I might feel a bit better about my brain shutting down on me right now.

Because, you know, when I get right down to it, I don't want to die like this. There's enough assholes out there, and I could've been something better.

Might be a little late now, though, huh?


End file.
